Volunteer Ghana
Healthcare & Medicine

Volunteering Healthcare in Ghana

Volunteer at a busy hospital in Ghana, where you will have the opportunity to learn about medical care in a low-income country. This is a great opportunity to experience healthcare in an African setting.

As a medical and healthcare volunteer in Ghana, you will gain hands-on experience working in a variety of hospital departments, including general practice, nursing, laboratory, A&E, physical therapy, maternity and surgical wards. You will shadow professionally trained doctors and nurses and assist with general clinical tasks.

Program Video

Working at a general hospital in Koforidua, Ghana, volunteers will also have the opportunity to observe diagnoses and treatment of conditions not common in Europe and North America, like leprosy, typhoid and malaria.

No medical training or professional qualifications are necessary to volunteer in the healthcare project in Ghana. This project is suitable for medical and pre-med students, as well anyone with a particular interest in healthcare.

Qualified professionals can register for a temporary certificate to practice in Ghana for an additional US $100.

Your role as a volunteer

Healthcare and medical volunteers in Ghana provide hands-on support at a busy hospital in Koforidua. You will learn how to diagnose different conditions, assist with basic tasks like drawing blood and setting up IV lines, assess pediatric patients, and support staff and patients in the prenatal, labor and postnatal wards.

Volunteers may work in a variety of departments, including nursing and dentistry, accident and emergency, pharmacy, orthopedics, maternity or midwifery, physical therapy, general practice wards and surgical departments.

Tasks may include:

Work schedule

Medical and healthcare volunteers work four days per week, from Monday to Thursday. Working hours are typically from 8am – 3pm, although your schedule may change depending on what hospital department you are placed in.

Journey to work

The hospital where you will be working is a 20-minute bus ride and a short walk from the volunteer dormitory.

Closed dates

The project is closed during the fourth week of December and on Easter Sunday and Monday.

Project Photos

Project Location

Project Reviews & Testimonials

Name: Ellen-Claire Terer

Age: 28

From: Australia

Rating:

I had prepared myself to approach my experience of midwifery in Ghana with an open mind.

I wanted to contribute in any way possible, and gain (although over a short period of 5 weeks) some insight into midwifery in this part of the world.My experience in the pre-natal ward, labour ward, and post-natal (lying in ward) in Koforidua Regional Hospital has been challenging to say the least.

My first placement was in the surgical ward, it was hands on, I started learning right way because the doctors explained the cases and treatment plan to me.

I was let to draw blood and set up IV lines under the supervision of a doctor and with the permission of the patient. There were also lecture series that I attended. Attending theater was the best part, I was able to watch and ask questions on the procedures being done.

Because of the remote location of the hospital many of the patients knew little if any English.

However the physicians and nurses did a good job at bridging the gap. Never the less my experience as a nurse here was very eye opening and has really helped shape how I will practice as a nurse in the future. This experience has also given me a greater appreciation for the healthcare system that Canada has in place.

As a young female, the program has offered a safe avenue for travel to a developing nation for a month.

The program received excellent reviews was affordable and catered to what I hoped to fulfill on this trip. Have fun, laugh, and distance yourself from the life you live back home. I can guarantee that after experiencing the country, leaving Ghana will be harder than the challenges of coming.

I have never been one for a lounging vacation and I had always wanted to travel to Africa.

A volunteer vacation seemed like the perfect fit in that I was able to visit a place I had always wanted and I was also able to busy myself with interesting work that could actually benefit me when I returned from my volunteer vacation.

This is the second time I've been to Ghana and it still impresses me that you can buy pretty much anything from the comfort of your tro-tro seat.

You can buy breakfast, laundry soap, razor blades, phone credit, school books...you name it! I've found it particularly exciting when stumbling across that thing I gave up looking for yesterday when sent north, south, east and west by well-meaning locals who wanted not to disappoint an obruni (white person) but to point them in the 'right' direction!

I started my project at the central hospital on the first Monday I was there, where I volunteered at the physiotherapy and pediatrics departments.

The doctors gave me a very warming reception and I began contributing to these departments from the first time I volunteered. As a recent graduate of Kinesiology and as a research student in spinal cord injury I found that there was a lot of contribute to the physiotherapy department.

People constantly told me to watch out for diseases, malaria, and that the people are not friendly in Ghana.

All these opinions offered by people made me cautious and scared about making a trip from Canada to Ghana. Nevertheless, I followed my instinct and was determined to prove them wrong about all these suspicions they had about Ghana.

Ghana Projects

Ghana Information Brochure

If you are interested in joining the program in Ghana, you should download and read our destination guide.

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We believe that Travel is a Catalyst for Growth. We believe in education, cultural learning, youth mentoring, entrepreneurship and adventure. uVolunteer is a boutique provider of meaningful volunteer abroad placements and cultural learning trips to Costa Rica, Ghana & Thailand. Read more about us.

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